Name:Sebastiano Panichella

Bio:

Sebastiano Panichella is a passionate Computer Science Researcher at University of Bern (UniBe).

He received the Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Sannio (Department of Engineering) in 2014 defending the thesis entitled ‘‘Supporting Newcomers in Open Source Software Development Projects’’: doi.org/10.1109/ICSM.2015.7332519. For more information have a look at his short CV (https://spanichella.github.io/img/CV-short.pdf).

His main research goal is to conduct industrial research, involving both industrial and academic collaborations, to sustain the Internet of Things (IoT) vision, where future “smart cities” will be characterized by millions of smart systems (e.g., cyber-physical systems such as drones, and other autonomous vehicles) connected over the internet, composed by AI-components, and/or controlled by complex embedded software implemented for the cloud. His research interests are in the domain of Software Engineering (SE), cloud computing (CC), and Data Science (DS): DevOps (e.g., Continuous Delivery, Continuous integration), Machine learning applied to SE, Software maintenance and evolution (with particular focus on Cloud, mobile, AI-based, and Cyber-physical applications), Mobile Computing. Moreover, he is promoting DS research on “Summarization Techniques for Code, Changes, and Testing”. He authored or co-authored around eighty papers appeared in International Conferences and Journals. These research works involved studies with industrial and open projects and received best paper awards or best paper nominations:

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He supervised (or co-supervised) 11 undergrad students, 22 MSc students and currently/recently 9 PhD students (6 of them during the postdoctoral experience at the University of Zurich), and 8 research assistants. He serves and has served as a program committee member of various international conference (e.g., ICSE, ASE, FSE, ICSME, etc.). Dr. Panichella was selected in 2019 as one of the top-20 (second in Switzerland) Most Active Early Stage Researchers Worldwide (results reported by the JSS journal) in SE. Dr. Panichella was selected In 2021 as one of the top-20 Most impactful SE researchers Worldwide (results reported by the JSS journal). According to (the September 2022 data-update from) the article “A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field” (in the report), a ranking (or selection) of researchers is made (by the Stanford University) and Dr. Panichella appears in the percentile rank of the top 2% or above in the sub-field of Software engineering. Similarly, Dr. Panichella appears in the percentile rank of the top 2% or above in the sub-field for 2023. He is an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Software: evolution and process (JSEP) and the Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) journal. He is also a distinguished reviewer of the TOSEM (Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology) journal. His research was funded in the past by - by one Swiss National Science Foundation Grant with the project called COSMOS: DevOps for Complex Cyber-physical Systems (since 2021), - https://www.cosmos-devops.org/ - the H2020 with the project called SURF-MobileAppsData The goal of the SURF-MobileAppsData (since 2021) - http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/seal/research/projects/SURF-MobileData.html - the Innosuisse with the project called “ARIES: Exploiting User Journeys and Testing Automation for Supporting Efficient Energy Service Platforms” (since 2021) - https://spanichella.github.io/projects/aries-devops/index.html

His research is currently supported by - the Hasler Foundation with the project called “Bridging the Reality Gap in Testing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” (since 2024) - the Swiss National Science Foundation with the project called “SwarmOps: Human-sensing based MLOps for Collaborative Cyber-physical systems” (since 2025) - the Horizon EU (“Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions-funded Doctoral Networks”) with the project called InnoGuard: Hybrid and Generative Intelligence for Trustworthy Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems (since 2024)

Research Motto: “It does not make sense to try to be one of the most brilliant scientists. It makes much more sense and it is also more fun to try to be one of the most curious and passionate among them”

Country:Switzerland

Affiliation:University of Bern

Research interests:Continuous Delivery, Continuous integration, Software maintenance and evolution (with particular focus on Cloud Applications, mobile, and Cyber-physical applications), Code Review, Mobile Computing, Summarization Techniques for Code, Changes and Testing.